I Almost Lost You
by awkward hawk
Summary: Clint gets hurt while fighting aliens with the other Avengers. IronHawk.


First time attempting this, I love ironhawk. I wrote this for someone and my friend read it, she then told me to post it. For those following me for the sequel to my other story, i'm still working on it. Inspired by headcanons with **TheFallOfGallifrey**.

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It happens during a run of the mill alien battles, this time it was a group of blob looking aliens that absorbed and shot back any power beams aimed at them. This made iron man a bit useless since he couldn't fire off his repulsors. Captain America, Hulk, and Thor were having a bit of luck by just trying to squish the ugly things, but it wasn't doing much. Natasha was away on a mission, which was good, because they doubted she could have done much against the fugly things anyway. This left Clint as their main weapon seeing as the blobsters, Tony had named them, couldn't exactly fire back arrows.

It was all working to plan. Thor, Captain, and Hulk would weaken the blobs to the point where Clint could fire off an explosive arrow and blow them up. New York was going to be very gooey after all of this was over. "Tony we could use your help over here, Hulk just got distracted and ran off after an ice cream truck."

Tony rolled his eyes as he heard Steve's voice. He didn't want to leave Clint alone on the rooftop, but duty called. "Damn, Hulk. I can buy you a freaking ice cream truck, a factory even." he muttered as he landed near a blob and began fighting it. His fighting wasn't all that good seeing as he kept trying to look up to see if Clint was alright.

"Focus on tiring it out, tin man." Clint said as he aimed towards the blob that Steve was fighting. He knew Tony was worried he himself was worried. The blobs were getting, and this was actually surprising seeing, as they were blobs, smarter. They knew that it was he who was the one destroying them and would soon be coming after him.

"Whatever you say, cupid." Tony tried to keep the worry from his voice, failing miserably.

He notched another arrow and let it fly towards Thor's blob, smirking as it blew up and got goo all over Thor. A noise behind him made him tense up and turn around. Shit. "Hey guys, uhm. I have a giant..." he was cut off, as the giant blob in front of him moved towards him. He notched up an arrow as he dove and fired it at the blob. The arrow penetrated the blob and blew up but had no effect on the giant blob, which Clint was guessing was the mother blob.

Clint's announcement over the com made Tony want to fly over to where he was, but he was still dealing with the stupid blob in front of him. He looked over to his right and saw that Steve was busy with a blob of his own. Thor was trying to take down two blobs of his own, damn it hulk. "Someone needs to get over to Hawkeye, now!"

Arrows had no effect on the stupid blob in front of him; he knew that if he could take it down then the whole blob problem would be over. He looked around frantically trying to find a building he could jump towards, the blob was advancing on him now and he was getting tired of trying to run away from it. He pulled out three explosive arrows and notched them up. This would be a big explosion and he was risking his life, but there was no other choice, he didn't want his headstone to read 'death by blob'. He glanced over to where Tony was still fighting the stupid blob and closed his eyes for a second before aiming and letting all three arrows loose on the blob.

The sound of the explosion made Tony forget about the blob and turn towards the building where Clint was – had been. The explosion had taken care of the blob, but he couldn't see Clint anywhere. His heart dropped as his eyes focused on the archer, falling from the building. "Clint." Without a second thought, he took off in the direction of his lover, hoping and praying he wouldn't be too late.

His plan had been, blow up the blob and fire off the grappling arrow. Things never went to plan when it came to him though. As soon as he fired he jumped off the building, he felt the wave of the explosion as he fell. What he hadn't counted on was the debris from the building. A big piece of debris from the roof knocked his bow from his hand while another hit him in the head. He stretched out his hand as his vision began greying, his mind playing back his surprise breakfast in bed with Tony that morning.

He hadn't meant to be so rough when he caught Clint, the speed he was going at allowed him to be only so gentle when stopping archers from going splat on the pavement. His heart sank as he landed and realized that Clint wasn't breathing.

"I need a medic." his voice cracked as he spoke into the com.

"Come on, baby. When I called you cupid, I didn't actually mean that you had wings." he chuckled as he tried to hold back tears. He removed his face plate and began to perform CPR on Clint, all the while remembering his excitement when he had brought him pancakes and strawberries for breakfast. Tony didn't cook, but when he did Clint would praise him and say that it had been the most delicious food he had ever eaten. He knew it was a lie, but hearing his lover say it was just amazing.

"Please, you just need to breathe." he pleaded as he continued his CPR. He hadn't even noticed that Thor and Steve had joined him and were staring at him with sadness in their eyes.

The medics got there not long after Steve and Thor; they pushed Tony to the side as they connected monitors to Clint. The heart rate monitor was just a straight line, Steve held Tony back as he tried to go to Clint's side once more. 'please, clint. you're strong, you can come back. don't leave me. you're the only one that gets me. you've fought so much before, you can't let this take you. please.' He kept on with his mantra as he watched one of the medics start up the defibrillator. One shock, nothing. Second shock, nothing…

Tony dropped to his knees as they tried a fourth time; he heard the words 'last time'. "Please" he whispered, letting the tears fall. Memories began to consume him, them dancing in the common room of the Avengers Tower, Clint perched up on a stool as he worked in his lab, coming up with the sparring excuse in order to have Clint pin him to the floor, their late night talks about things they had never spoken to anyone else before, his excitement whenever Tony would join him at the range just to watch him practice.

"Tony."

He looked up at Steve who was pointing towards Clint; he looked over and saw his chest moving up and down. The medics were now attaching an IV and were assisting him in breathing. He let out a long breath trembling a little. Clint was alive.

He sat next to Clint the minute he was out of surgery and back at the Avengers Tower. He had three broken ribs, he was sure he had been the cause of those. The head wound had worried the doctor, but CT and MRI scans showed no permanent damage. Tony placed his hand over Clint's and closed his eyes, he was happy to be able to hold his hand and know that even though his eyes weren't open right now, they would open soon.

The next day he woke up to find Natasha sitting in the chair on the other side of Clint's bed. She looked like she needed a shower, meaning she had come straight from her mission debrief. He caught her gaze and nodded, she returned the gesture before going back to staring at her partner.

Next person to join him and Clint was Bruce who apologized over and over again for the Hulk. It hadn't been his fault, they knew that the Hulk was risky, it wasn't the first time he had run after something instead of fighting the alien in front of him. He offered the doctor a small smile and went back to staring at Clint.

Steve and Thor showed up at the same time and managed to tear Tony away from Clint and push him off towards the kitchen for food. They then made him take a shower, after all that was done; they allowed him entry into Clint's room again. He glared at them, but the glare died when Steve handed him a cup of coffee. He justified his inability to be mad at them by thinking that it would be horrible if Clint woke up and he looked and smelled like a caveman.

Everything was cloudy and his head felt like it was full of cotton balls. He moved his fingers first, if there was any problem with his hands then he didn't want to open his eyes. One arm felt like it was in a cast, yep, definitely a cast. The other, he moved his fingers feeling soft hair, Tony. He opened his eyes and scowled when he saw the cast was red and yellow. His eyes then landed on Tony, he couldn't help himself, he raised his uninjured hand and ran it through Tony's hair. He smiled as he began to stir; the smile was short lived as he felt a sharp pain in his head. The memory of what happened came back to him, his bow being knocked out by debris, a giant slab of building hitting him on the head. "Ugh."

Tony's head snapped up as he heard a groan. He had felt a hand run through his hair, but thought that it was probably like the other times when it was just his imagination. Despite Clint being in pain, he couldn't help the smile that formed on his lips. "Hey baby."

"Why red and yellow?"

He let out a small chuckle and gripped Clint's hand. "Best way to represent your boyfriend."

Clint wanted to glare at him, but the look on Tony's face said there was something else. "What happened, Tony?"

"We almost lost you." He took a deep breath to keep his voice from cracking. "When I caught you, you weren't breathing. They had to use a defibrillator, I thought…"

He looked down at Tony's hand gripping his. "I'm sorry."

"It's not your fault."

"I know." Clint sighed and tugged on Tony's hand, making him look at him. "I don't even remember much, I just know I was falling."

"Giant mama blobster attacked you, you fired some explosive arrows at her and it all went boom. You managed to disable them all with that"

Clint was actually a little pleased with himself, that small sense of pride died as he saw Tony's eyes. He scooted over hissing as he felt his torso catch fire, he hated having broken ribs.

"What are you doing?" Tony asked in alarm as Clint moved over on his bed.

"What does it look like?" he patted the now empty space next to him. "And here I thought I was the one who got hit in the head."

Tony rolled his eyes at his lover and moved to lie down next to him. "Please don't jump off anymore buildings."

"I'll try." He couldn't make it a promise, he was always being either thrown off buildings or falling off of them. "Maybe you can make me a pair of wings"

"You're taking the cupid thing a bit too literal." Tony chuckled and ran his fingers through Clint's hair as he fell back asleep. He was glad to have him back; those minutes when he thought he'd lost him had been the worst minutes of his entire life.


End file.
